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MIAMI – The 2024 Conference USA regular season and tournament champions are back to defend their title for the 2025 season.
The defending conference champions will have a tough schedule this season, starting the 2025 campaign with a matchup at No. 3 Florida State this Sunday, August 17. The Panthers will also have matchups against two other power-4 opponents in UCF and Miami, before transitioning to the conference schedule.
The Panthers were dominant in 2024 season, leading to the program’s first ever regular season and tournament championships in Conference USA. The team won 13 games last season, the most since the 2011 campaign, and went 6-1-2 in conference play, the best record against CUSA-opponents in program history. FIU earned a bid to its third NCAA Tournament appearance in program history (1993 & 2011), playing Auburn in the first round of the 2024 NCAA tournament.
FIU returns two 2024 All-CUSA Second Team selections in Goalkeeper Valery Restrepo and defender Zora Jackson. The pair represents the only returners from last season to grace the CUSA 2024 All-Conference awards.
Mat Dunn was hired as the fifth head coach in FIU Women’s Soccer program history after Jonathan Garbar left to become the associate head coach at Mississippi State Women’s Soccer. Dunn, coming from an extremely prestigious career at Keiser, had a 232-35-15 record as the head coach of Keiser Women’s Soccer and won two national championships back-to-back in 2019 and 2020, while also winning NAIA Coach of the Year those same years. Dunn led the Seahawks to 10 SUN-Conference Regular Season Championships, and six SUN-Conference Tournament Championships, developing seven SUN Players of the Years, three SUN Newcomers of the Year and two SUN Freshman of the Year. Additionally, Dunn produced 96 SUN All-Conference members, including 59 first team selections. Hailing from Sheffield, United Kingdom, Dunn hopes to bring the same success he had at Keiser to the Panthers.
With 28 players on the active roster, FIU welcomes back 14 returners to the squad, and picked up 14 new players. Of those new players, three are true freshmen, five transferred from other division-1 schools, five transferred from NAIA schools and 1 came from overseas.
FIU brought in five players this season with high-level NAIA experience. Graduate student Jayden Boelter scored 101 goals at Cumberland (Ky.), including 30 last season to earn her NAIA Player of the Year. She also earned NAIA First Team All-American in 2023 and ’24. Graduate students Ola Orelesi and Grace Morris were brought in to shore up the defense. Both were NAIA All-Americans with three honorees between the two of them. Additionally, Orelesi was a 2x Continental Athletic Conference (CAC) Player of the Year. Sophomore Delfina Lombardi was the only player to follow Mat Dunn from Keiser. The incoming-sophomore netted six goals for the Seahawks last season, including three in the NAIA National Tournament. She is a member of the Argentina National Team, with two goals in international play.
With a brand new head coach in Mathew Dunn, and 14 new players on the team, the Panthers are ready for a new era in the 305.
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General athletic news can also be found at @FIUSports on Facebook and @FIUAthletics on Twitter and Instagram.